Prepping For Frugal April 2020
KC and I are moving next month or hopefully June depending on the state of the world. Yes, we have already put the money down on the apartment, but worried that if we go into lockdown what would happen! Anyway we felt that because we need to save some money to get some new furniture, especially this fun storage desk, that we would follow DIY Playbooks Frugal February guidelines to do it in April. You can find out more about what Frugal February is, click here!
The Rules
The rules that we set are “no unnecessary purchases.” Of course we will still pay our bills and buy food as needed, though we will be mindful about what we are buying. Going in with a list and recipes that we will make and eat is key! We will not be taking uber rides, buying coffee or lunch out, no clothing shopping and no unnecessary amazon purchases and no art supplies! KC and I are both already pretty frugal, except for clothing and art supplies. WIth the world being pretty shut down so we feel confident in being frugal this month, though online shopping is tempting.
Making Sure We Have Fun
There is really not much going on anyway in the outside world, so there are no social obligations to really stress about. We won’t get stuck in the situation of being out and having a bar tab, or ordering food because everyone else is. If social distancing was not a thing, we would be having people over to our home more often because I love to host and to feed people!
We still want to make sure that we are constantly having fun through these pretty high stress times. We are already doing a nightly movie night where KC picks one night and I pick another. It is a nice time to wind down and get ready for bed while spending time together. We are as often as we can taking a walk outside, watching cooking videos and trying to make them ourselves, constantly crafting and listening to all the live concerts on Instagram. There have also been a few old hockey games on and sometimes we pretend they are live and like we have never seen them before, which is always fun!
Our Goal
So to be honest, we do not often keep track of how much we spend a month together, though that is something we want to start tracking because it can't be pretty. I actually did start tracking and it is not as cute as I would have expected. We mindlessly spend because we do not track. Our goal with frugal April is to save at least $1,000 but I have a feeling it could be more with less unnecessary shopping.
Tracking Your Money
So, we really wanted to start tracking our money (more me than KC because he already does that). KC uses the app Mint and he feels that it is incredibly helpful because he can have all different sections of where his money goes and how his money is distributed over the month. I tried to use the app but it overwhelmed me more than anything so I decided to go with a chart that my friend made to track her own money.
Basically the long and short of it is you have a few columns for the money that you spend each month like rent, utilities,car payments, food, gas and then you have your “fun” money section. Your average trips to CVS or Michaels, a haircut, a pedicure, and date night expenses. You also have a money coming in section where you put all the money you make each month. At the end of each month you want to add everything up and make sure that your profit is higher than your spending. You can be as crazy as you want with tracking your money, at the end of the day you just want to be able to know where it's going.
Being More Mindful
This whole quarantine situation has made me realize that a lot of the time you have to go out of your way to spend money. What I have been thinking through this whole process, I want to be a heck ton more mindful about my spending. Yes, going to Michaels and Target is super fun, but it does not have to be every day. I have so many art supplies that I often do not need more and I feel like when I go to Target, I just buy things to buy them. Not that it is all bad, I just don’t think it can happen as often as it is. So, this experiment is going to be important for me because I want to focus more on where I am putting my money and how to best save money. Who knows, eventually if we do this long enough we may be able to put a down payment on a house.